


Lady Danger

by Trillian_Astra



Category: Pacific Rim (2013), Pirates of the Caribbean (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Gen, Jaeger AU, Modern AU, Pacific Rim AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-10-06
Updated: 2013-10-06
Packaged: 2017-12-28 15:22:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,108
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/993486
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Trillian_Astra/pseuds/Trillian_Astra
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Elizabeth Swann and Will Turner were both inspired to enlist with the PPDC after the first Kaiju attack. But WIll leaves the Academy to join an underground group of pilots rejected by the PPDC who've decided to fight the kaiju anyway, using old jaegers and third-hand gear. </p><p>(Effectively, POTC characters, Pacific Rim universe.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lady Danger

Elizabeth Swann watched the news reports of the monster that had emerged from the ocean to attack San Francisco in an unused classroom at her boarding school, surrounded by her school friends. She was a few weeks short of her sixteenth birthday.

In the days that followed, the world’s governments scrambled to deal with the attacks, and formed a military organisation to deal specifically with the problem of what they were calling the _kaiju_.

The moment Elizabeth heard about that – when she heard that they were recruiting for candidates to be trained to pilot special craft to fight the kaiju – she reached for her phone and called her father.

“I want to enlist,” she said, barely giving him a chance to say hello.

“Elizabeth, you’re too young… think of your education.”

“I can get all the education I need after the war, father, and you _know_ I wanted to enlist in the military after school anyway. This is practically the same thing…”

She heard only silence for a moment as her father considered his response. “I know you think you want to enlist. I also know that you are fifteen years old and I don’t think I want you involved in this. If you like,” he added quickly, “I can find you a voluntary role helping with the administration, or the clean-up. During the holidays, of course.”

“That’s your alternative?” she scoffed. “There are plenty of people to do the clean-up, father, I want to _fight_. And I’m almost sixteen, _and_ the Academy program takes a minimum of eighteen months so if I signed up right away, I wouldn’t see active service until I was almost eighteen!”

Her father paused (not mentioning that seventeen and a half is not _almost eighteen_ ), and eventually said. “Right. I’m not saying no, my dear, but… we’ll talk about this. If you really want to do this, check the requirements for the training program and prove to me that you can meet them.”

Elizabeth could barely contain her grin. “Thank you, papa! I’ll call you later. Thank you!”

~

The first seventeen years of William Turner’s life were uneventful. His father Bill was a soldier, his mother Elaine a schoolteacher. His father was posted to a military base near San Francisco, and that was where they lived.

Then, on an otherwise ordinary day while Will was at school, a monster emerged from the ocean. Bill Turner was among the soldiers mobilised at the time. The schools were among the first buildings to be evacuated, which meant that Will and his mother both escaped the near-total destruction of the city. Neither of them  saw his father after that day. Officially, Bill Turner was declared missing, presumed dead, and when the time came to remember those lost in the attack, his name was included on the memorial.

Elaine Turner took her son and relocated to Chicago, where she had grown up. She found a teaching job soon enough, and got Will into the same school for his senior year. She was trying her best to keep things normal, he knew that. But there was a hole the shape of his father in their life and he knew that she wouldn’t be able to fill it.

Will – who had previously been a bookish boy, uninterested in sports for the most part – started spending most of his free time in the gym.

The day after he graduated high school, he enlisted with the PPDC . The day after that, he was on a flight to the PPDC Academy in  Anchorage.

~

Elizabeth was sitting in the waiting room of her father’s office, wearing her most professional outfit, and her father’s secretary kept looking at her oddly.

Just when she was about to stand up and ask the woman what, exactly, she thought she was looking at, the intercom buzzed and the secretary picked the phone up. “Yes, Ambassador Swann?”

A minute later, she replaced the handset and said to Elizabeth, “Your father’s ready for you now, Miss Swann.”

“Thanks,” Elizabeth said with a tight smile as she stood up.

Inside the office, she sat down in one of the armchairs opposite her father’s desk. “Your new secretary hates me.”

“No she doesn’t,” her father said wearily, putting down the sheet of paper in his hands. “You still want to enlist, I take it?”

“Yes!” she said quickly. “Um. Yes, dad, I do,” she said more calmly.

“I thought you’d say so. I spoke to some contacts in the PPDC. The Academy will take you as a student in the junior class – there’s no point putting you with the experienced soldiers or pilots, you don’t have the training. It will take longer, but you’ll be trained properly. And you’ll be safe,” he added.

“I can go?” she asked, unable to suppress her grin.

“You can go. Work hard, listen to your instructors, and keep yourself safe. Promise me that, at least.”

“I promise, dad, I promise! Thank you!”

~

“Cadets!”

Elizabeth – and the other thirteen people in her class – snapped to attention as their training officer walked up.

“You’ve all done your simulations and your final tests, we’ve looked over the scores and we have some promising candidates here. The four of you with the best scores will be moving on to final training tomorrow. If I  call out your name, come up here.”

Elizabeth swallowed, and resisted the urge to look around at the other cadets.

“Gillette, Stephen,” the captain called out. She wasn’t surprised, everyone knew Gillette was one of the most hard-working among them.

“Norrington, James.” That was a protégé of her father’s. He was a bit stiff sometimes, but he was all right otherwise.

“Swann, Elizabeth.”

Her mouth opened of its’ own accord. She blinked, and realised that everyone was looking expectantly at her, and hurried up to stand next to James. He glanced down at her (he was _annoyingly_ tall next to her) and gave her a small smile.

“Wilkes, Joseph.”

The last of the four was Joe, who she was vaguely aware of but knew little about. She didn’t look at him, she was distracted by one of the remaining ten cadets, who was barely holding it together. It was Will Turner, a boy of about her own age. They’d become friendly not long after they arrived, and she knew how badly he wanted to be a Ranger.

After they’d been dismissed, she ran over to him. “Will? Are you all right?”

He was sitting on the floor, looking down at his hands. Without looking up, he said, “I’m a failure.”

She crouched down next to him. “No, no, you’re not… you’re not a failure.”

“Then why’d they say Joe’s name and not mine? Did I not score high enough on my simulations? What did I do wrong?”

“Will,” she said seriously, “look at me. I’ve watched you training, I don’t think you did anything wrong.”

“There must have been something, Lizzie, there must have been.”

“I’ll find out. Do you want me to find out? I’ll ask the captain.”

“Could you? I’m not sure I could face her myself.”

~

Elizabeth knocked on the door of Captain Ross’ office.

“Come in…”

“Captain? Can I talk to you?”

The captain looked up from her paperwork, and smiled. “What is it, Swann?”

“Um. It’s about Will Turner. I’m really worried about him…”

“Because he didn’t get through.”

“That’s right. Is there anything I can tell him?”

The captain sighed. “I can’t really tell you, Swann… his test scores were good, but then I suspect you know that already. Why don’t you tell him to come and see me himself? And tell him that he has nothing to be afraid of, okay?”

“Yes, sir. I’ll do that.”

~

Will had headed out to the park, not wanting to be around the Academy at the time. He was sitting on a bench by himself, staring into space and wondering what he was going to do with his life now that the PPDC had decided it didn’t want him.

“’Ello, mate.”

He turned to see a man sitting on the bench near him. “Can I help you?”

“Actually, I was thinking that _I_ could probably help _you_. You’re Academy, right?”

“Up until this morning, I was. How can you tell?”

“Academy brats all look the same. And from the look on your face, I’d say you didn’t get to final training.”

Will looked at him, trying to figure out how to properly express his feelings about just how intrusive this total stranger was being. But he couldn’t think of anything, so he closed his mouth and sat there.

The man took a swig from the bottle in his hand. “I know that feeling, mate,” although Will hadn’t said anything. He held out the bottle to Will. “I think you could do with some of this.”

Will looked at him. “I’m eighteen…”

“Did I ask for your ID? Have a drink, kid. You need it.”

Will took a small sip of what turned out to be rum. “Thanks,” he said, coughing.

“No problem. Say… I think I might have an opportunity you might be interested in. Piloting, if you want, but there’s always a need for technicians.”

“Jaegers, you mean?” Will said, disbelieving.

The man grinned at him crookedly. “You think the PPDC are the only players in this game?”

“I never thought about it that way… the only Jaegers on the news are PPDC.  There are others?”

“Yeah… older models, rebuilt as required. Some of us prefer the analogue models, you know? Personally I don’t quite trust the digital systems they’re coming up with these days. Well,” he said with an air of finality, “you do some thinking about what you want, and decide if you’re in. Pack anything you want to take with you and meet me here tomorrow night if you are.”

With that, the man stood up and walked away, leaving Will sitting on a park bench holding a half-empty bottle of rum. Will looked down at his feet, and thinks about his father, and knows in his heart that the PPDC will never give him the chance to pilot a Jaeger. He might get a job as a technician or a mechanic in one of the shatterdomes, if he was lucky. The idea of _other shatterdomes_ , run by people outside the PPDC, was something that hadn’t ever occurred to him before.  He was sure that they had to be illicit, acquiring old mothballed Jaegers from somewhere and refitting them, because surely a legitimate organisation would be something he’d have heard of…

He took a swig from the bottle in his hand, coughed again, and frowned. The PPDC obviously didn’t want him as a pilot. And a probably-illicit organisation might put him in a Jaeger. Without fully understanding how, he realised that he knew what he was going to do.

~

“Will?” Elizabeth called as she knocked on the door of his dorm room. “Will, are you in there?”

The door opened to reveal not Will Turner, but his roommate Mitchell. “Swann? What are you doing here?”

“Mitch, do you know where Will is? I can’t find him anywhere.”

“He left this morning… said he was going back to his mom’s. Uh, he left a note for you.” Mitchell dug around in the pocket of his jeans and pulled out an envelope folded in two, which he passed to her.

“Oh,” she said. “Thanks. I’ll leave you to it…” 

She studied the envelope as she walked away – it was nothing special, plain white from the commissary, with her name written on the front. It provided no clues to the contents, so she tore it open, pulled out the letter inside and started to read.

The letter Will had left her was disappointingly brief. It repeated what Mitchell had said, that Will had gone back to his mother’s in Chicago. It mentioned that he might get a job as a mechanic somewhere, or join the regular army. His mother’s address was there as well.

At the bottom of the page, she read _Goodbye, Elizabeth. Good luck._ And, just underneath, his name. She stared at the page. He’d signed himself William, not Will.

Elizabeth crumpled the letter in her hand. “Dammit, Will…” she muttered.

“Elizabeth!”

She looked up at the sound of the cheery voice, that she recognised instantly. She sighed and turned. “James…”

“I’ve been looking for you everywhere. Captain Ross wants to see us, something about our final training...”

“Oh, right.”

“What’s that in your hand?”

She looked at the crumpled letter in her fist. “Nothing,” she said with a falsely bright smile. “We should get moving, come on.”


End file.
